Using a panel of annual data for 20 countries we show that synchronized fiscal consolidation (stimulus) programmes in different countries make their business cycles more closely linked, especially in the case of fiscal adjustments lasting 2 or 3 years. We also find: (i) little evidence of...

Interest-rate spreads fluctuate widely across time and countries. We characterize their behavior using some 3,200 quarterly observations for 21 advanced and 17 emerging economies since the early 1990s. Before the financial crisis, spreads are 10 times more volatile in emerging economies than in...

It is well-known that the high synchronization of the business cycles among industrial countries cannot easily be replicated in standard open economy macroeconomic models without assuming that the exogenous shocks hitting these countries are highly correlated. We develop a two-country behavioral...

Using a factor structural VAR for 14 countries out of the G20 group, we document that output innovations originating outside the G7 account for shares of 10 to almost 25 percent in the business cycle fluctuations of G7 GDP growth. Using auxiliary regressions, we additionally find that these...

The paper uses quarterly GDP data for some 30 years up to and including 2001, to examine the identity and development of the European business cycle. Cycles are identified by using a band-pass filter version of the Hodrick-Prescott filter and affiliations are examined using clustering techniques...

This paper applies volatility measures and VAR spectral analytic techniques to give a thorough description of the salient business cycle characteristics of central NIPA aggregates for the G7. Furthermore, their role in contributing to the supranational G7 and EURO15 cyclic dynamics is...

Advanced statistical techniques are used to analyze Hong Kong output dynamics. Hong Kong, Japan and the U.S. are found to share some common long-term and short-term cyclical variations. While the Hong Kong economy is susceptible to external shocks and Granger-caused by the other two economies,...

The former EU president Jean-Claude Junker has proposed that all countries of the European Union should also adopt the euro as their currency and recent research has shown that countries currently pursuing this goal indeed fulfill the classical Optimal Currency Area (OCA) criterion of positively...

Using the measures proposed by Mink et al. (2012), we reexamine the coherence of business cycles in the euro area using a long sample period. We also analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on business cycle coherence and examine whether our measures for business cycle coherence indicate a...

We introduce the technique of band spectral panel regression (BSPR) to analyze global linkages across sectors and frequency bands. It relies on decomposing time series —allowably measured in mixed observation frequency— into “deviation cycle” dynamics by frequency band. We use it to...